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Sunday, 8 December 2013

Top 50 Singles of 2013: 40 - 31

40. The National - Don't Swallow
the Cap

“Don’t
Swallow the Cap” has all the baritone sentimental value of The National in one
five minute song. It was released as a promotional single in Europe, then later
in the States, and you can see why The National picked this as their grabber.
The lyrics flow well, as Matt Berninger sings so smoothly, with pace, and with
passion. This is The National at their best, and “Don’t Swallow the Cap” drowns
the listener in sorrow, within an album of pure sadness. Trouble Will Find Me is one unitary piece of inner reflection from
start to finish, but it’s “Don’t Swallow the Cap” that leads.

~Eddie Gibson

39. Braids – Amends

Braids’ Flourish // Perish and its album cover can only be described as
magnificent. It’s one of the few 2013 albums where the album cover defies the
actual music of the respect it deserves. “Amends” is a minimalistic house
track, one which borders the realm Four Tet. Braids’ debut album Native Speaker was an incredible album,
with dream pop (thanks to the) guitar progressions. Braids left this aspect at
the studio door when they came to record Flourish // Perish, and “Amends” is the
single that was supposed to gain a following. It’s difficult to move on from a
genre so reliant on guitars, but Braids understand their future, their career
choice, and are playing to that with Flourish
// Perish, with “Amends” being the instrumental difference from “Lemonade”
and Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s vocals. Read our track review of “Amends”.

~Eddie Gibson

38. Boards Of Canada - Reach For The Dead

If Music Has The Right... came about like a dazed recalling of younger
days, and Geogaddi a distinctly coherent stimuli of more abrupt fields
of view, Harvest's "Reach For The Dead" appears like an invasive wake-up
call to resume real-World acceptance. There remained that typically
BoC-esque swirl of the real and the unreal within the track's
mirage-like flicker of synthesizers and bass. But as it slowly emerged
from out the baroness, Reach For The Dead's dazed recollect soon
dissipated into a stronger emphasis on rhythm and pace - the track
leading further into the album's looming themes of once nimble childish
folly, now confined to long-lost, hopeful recollection.

~Jordan Helm

37. HAIM - The Wire

HAIM’s
debut album Days Are Gone may have
been incredibly average at face value, but the third track “The Wire” stands
out as the single, and as the best track on their debut. Forget the nonsense
and non-single tracks that fail to live up to the singles reputation, because
HAIM are all about “The Wire” and their continued success on British radio with
it. It has brilliant string jabs, and a great structure. It doesn’t lack in
quality like some tracks from Days Are
Gone, giving it a complete feel – rightfully making it on this Top 50 Singles
list.

~Eddie Gibson

36. The Fall - Sir William Wray

Mark
E. Smith’s nonsensical vocals are an attraction. It’s Smith’s poetry that sits
above the post-punk recordings of The Fall that make singles like “Sir William
Wray” accessible. Smith’s not speaking clearly, and the structure of delivery
is far from popular. But the guitar riff and synthesizer accompaniment are
surely, one of the most accessible, and welcoming for years – in terms of The
Fall years. “Sir William Wray” dictates a distorted vocal with Smith’s typical
screeches and repetition of certain words. The guitars add the extra bite,
giving this single a slot on our 2013 list.

~Eddie Gibson

35. Franz Ferdinand - Evil Eye

Of all the swagger-fuelled surveying of working class ruptures, no track had provided as much sinister groove and flair as Franz Ferdinand’s Evil Eye. For a track that intently disregarding complex or deep-diving analogies, with thanks to Alex Kapranos’ colourful dynamics and the band’s jagged staccato guitars, Evil Eye’s sharp and witty narrative provided a dire scenario with hefty amounts of character. And while the album continued to show resurgences for the Scottish four-piece, no place-holder for Ferdinand’s luxuriously comical social scenery was as strong or as captivating as this.

~Jordan Helm

34. Bibio - À tout à l'heure

While his foot may be unjustly pushed into the frame of IDM by many
outside on-lookers, Bibio’s saving grace remains his past exploration of
more acoustic and organic instrumentation alongside the genre’s
recognizably experimental mind-openers into production and atmosphere. "À
tout à l'heure" provided us with the best of both Worlds in a piece that
from the off gave a warming, child-like innocence in its sun-glazing
guitar strings and optimistically bright synth hooks. But it was beside
Stephen Wilkinson’s own delightfully enveloping vocals and the track’s
blurred bliss, which helped the song’s cause for relaxed reflection a
fitting summer snippet.

~Jordan Helm

33. Machinedrum - Gunshotta

Footwork, and bass-orientated music to that effect, is a difficult
sub-field to impose conceptualization let alone conviction in compelling
its listener to remain attached to. But on Gunshotta, Travis Stewart’s
most conceptual album to date, begins impressively provocative and
engaging. With its melodic tension of sampled vocals, hip-hop crazed
beats and the track’s overall, mounting level of uncertainty, the
emotions and vibes slowly unravelling reveal a darker and volatile
underbelly to the imagined locale Gunshotta represents. A ballad to the
multitude of inner-city estates Worldwide, it is the perfect surmise to
many a suburban stand-off.

~Jordan Helm

32. Low - Plastic Cup

Low’s laconic and unique
style has been well known for over 20 years now. The trio, at its core
stems from the chilling harmonies between leads Alan Sparhawk and Mimi
Parker. "Plastic Cup" goes along with everything they’ve developed since
their roots in the early 90s. It’s haunting and slow- an absolutely
terrific single. While its lyrical content is pretty simplistic
(following the story of a plastic cup from its usage for drug testing to
being fossilised and dug up and deemed sacramental), the song itself is
enormous in every way and the atmosphere of the track is so superb that
its lyrics don’t matter in the slightest. For Low to be putting out a
tune this good, after 10 LPs, it doesn’t seem like there is any stopping
them anytime soon.~Jonathan Hoel

31. Gold Panda - Brazil

Gold Panda knows how to utilise
repetition. “Brazil” is the bastard child of Gold Panda’s use of sampling to
create vivid atmospheres of night time escapism. It’s not overly complex,
although the use of repetition and the beat make for a fantastic unconventional
electronic track that’s both glitch and ambient. To me, “Brazil” is a welcomed
return to Gold Panda’s older, more left-field recordings, and his album Half of Where You Live needed “Brazil”. It’s
very much alike Braids’ new sound (Braids most likely took some of their deep
electronica from the beats of Gold Panda / Four Tet’s past.) – Read our track review of “Brazil”.